


What means my name to you?*

by Nishizaki



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, It's Not Exactly Angst, Torchwood manages to break my heart every second of every day, lots of them - Freeform, mentions of Buddhism, mentions of Canon Character Death(s), post-Miracle Day, yeah that's exactly how much i think about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7624843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nishizaki/pseuds/Nishizaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Miracle Day. Jack finds himself in Beijing, where a young lad reminds him of death, time and everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What means my name to you?*

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [И имя тебе...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7490787) by [Nishizaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nishizaki/pseuds/Nishizaki). 



> This is a loose translations of my own work which was originally written in Russian.
> 
> For the name I used a quote from Pushkin's poem by the same name.  
> The Brodsky bit was translated by me as well, I didn't really know where should I look for Russian poems in English. Anyway, that would have taken too long, as this work by itself was but a little scribble I came up with after rewatching the Miracle Day (for like the fourth time).  
> I do apologise if any of the Buddhism terms I used in the text are not what you actually call them in English. The thing is I was studying Buddhism long before I was fluent in Eng, therefore the majority of it I learned in Russian (and then in Chinese as it seemed more appropriate). Please do correct me on that occasion.  
> The bit from the Chinese mythology - all I know is taken from my chinese class textbooks :D  
> 

 

_Think for yourself_

_Who should be chained and caged._

_The marvel._

_‘Is best to look away than wonder._

_(I. Brodsky)_

The XXI century Earth is dressed in iron and aims for the stars.

People are still going at it: waging wars, pushing progress’ borders. People are still people. In the XXI century, they are coming to the top-brass like sailors by V. Hugo, who would kneel down to blaspheme and implore their patron. _Grant me what I ask, or I’ll throw a stone at thy head, ou te feg' un pic_.

Jack is in love with humanity as flawed as it is.

Beijing meets him with sticky hotness, endless crowds of people and a very specific blend of scents. Jack has a feeling that the odor here hasn’t changed in decades.

He is significantly taller than most locals, even in plain clothes he is too noticeable. The blessing of big Chinese cities though: _no one cares._

Occasionally he visits a local boy, the owner of a small dinner on one of those old traditional Chinese-style streets. The walls inside are bright red, so the joint looks like a dragon ready to eat you up from the outside. The one like that would swallow you in a second.

Boy’s name is Yong Sheng. Jack is telling him all the stories about England, America, Shanghai, the future.

Yong Sheng knows most of the stories from childhood. Last time Jack visited those places – Torchwood business – he might have had a hand in bringing the boy’s parents together.

 

“Have you ever heard of the impermanence doctrine?” asks him Yong Sheng.

“That’s to do with Buddhism, is it not?” Jack smiles watching the tea leafs’ flow.

“The things like the matter or any substance at all do not exist,” says Yong Sheng meaningfully, half-serious half-fooling around. “Nothing is permanent. There is but a flow of the ordered elements. According to Buddhism we, mortals, see the world around as a cine-film. It spins so fast that we get an illusion of stable reality around us.”

He then snaps his fingers right in front of Jack’s face.

“And this is ksana.”

 

 _Yan Luo Wang_ – that’s what Yong Sheng calls him, laughing off all Jack’s questions as of the nature behind that particular nickname.

“Your eyes are blue,” he answers once. Like that explains anything.

 

Yong Sheng is young, pure and clean as a paper-sheet. Jack could have taken the boy with him, written all the wonders of the world' all over him. For - he is but a small citizen of a huge megalopolis. Jack could have shown him such wonders.

 

Every evening Jack nearly asks him.

 

When Yong Sheng suddenly asks him about the Miracle Day, he for once doesn't seem all that light and cheerful. Jack realises just as suddenly, that China was the first country to close its borders and put all kind of restrictions on people. Even the silly joke about the contraceptives in the water had a new colour to it.

It took London a couple of months to start burning people. Didn’t take America even a full thirty days.

Just how long did it take China?

Nobody knows, what was happening here, and _no one actually talks about it_.

Jack subdues a shiver creeping down his spine and looks around the small dinner. Yong Sheng is pulling the game alone. He mentioned offhandedly that his parents _retired_. Jack wasn’t brave enough to push the topic further.

“Yan Luo Wang,” – calls Yong Sheng with a small smile on his lips (not in his eyes though). “Tell me about the Miracle Day. Torchwood stopped it, right? Why did it take you all this time then?”

Jack looks at his tea bowl.

He thinks: _I introduced myself using the name of my long-dead friend._

He thinks: _I met a man I loved. I thought him dead for many decades. He killed me once._

He thinks: _The last friend of mine betrayed me in order to safe her family._

_We saved the world and killed Esther Drummond. She was twenty-six years old._

Jack does not say a word.

“Yong Sheng. I bring nothing but trouble,” – finally Jack answers faking a smile and quoting Gwen. “During the Miracle, I was the only mortal man on the planet Earth.”

He pushes the words out of his mouth and feels ash and rot on his tongue. When you have lived that long the ability to forget is but a blessing.

Yong Sheng nods abruptly, like a couple of short sentences can take in all of it: the undead; the burning camps; criminals that escaped justice; the sick and the old abandoned by their families, left to the mercy of the system that wasn’t there yet; Esther Drummond.

It’s very quiet. Yong Sheng seemingly doesn’t own the clock.

“Tell me, Yan Luo Wang, are you scared to die?” – the tension and whatsoever has already left Yong Sheng.

He is pouring more tea for Jack.

Jack grits his teeth.

In a course of an unbearably long couple of months he would ask himself – he would ask himself every minute of every day. If the Miracle were to happen a little tiny bit earlier. If Torchwood were to stand its ground for little tiny bit longer…

Would he be glad if all of them were to stay alive? Would he want them to have even a glimpse of their planet – like that?

Owen would have had this shit-eating half-grin plastered on his face, being a jerk about the whole thing. Saying how he is out of his damn job.

Toshiko would have worked on solving it with her lips tightly pressed together.

Yanto…

_Yantoyantoyanto._

The name tastes like coffee and metal.

Faces of his dead friends flash in front of him, and he thinks distantly, he is going to forget them. He is going to forget, his memory is not cut out to deal with centuries of information. Come a day he wouldn’t remember their brilliance, their bravery. Not even their names.

Jack wished every so often to turn mortal, imagining how he would just end it all. He wished so hard for it that when it actually happened – it was like a punch to the face. The Miracle made him realise just how hard he was ready to fight for his life with all he’s got.

“Yes,” Jack doesn’t touch his tea again. “I am scared to die.”

“Why?”

“Too used to living.”

The smile on his face is tired and mostly forced.

That many years on your scales would do that to you.

Yong Sheng finishes his tea in one go and looks at him slyly.

“That is why I call you Yan Luo Wang, Captain.”

Jack laughs sort of brokenly. He doesn’t get the reference even though he is quite sure he has heard it before. Can’t remember much from the old days.

People live and people die, life makes a full circle not slowing down even for a second.

Jack thinks about a madman with a weakness for theatrical. His mind is instantly flooded with stars, roses, and smiles of the crazy Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Jack chuckles dryly. The memory pops up suddenly. Oh _Yan Luo Wang_.

Maybe, Torchwood should have taken that name instead.

**Author's Note:**

> The blue colour in Buddhism is used to mark bodeful and formidable Gods.
> 
> The impermanence doctrine – Ksanikavada – is a Buddhism doctrine that includes such teachings as Samsara, the cycle of life and seath. According to that doctrine nothing is ever permanent, not the mental, not the physical.
> 
> Ksana – is an instance. A moment it takes you to snap your fingers.
> 
> 閻羅王 – Yanluo Wang – God of Death in Chinese mythology.  
> In Buddhism the God of Death holds the name Yama. His eyes penetrate the past, the present and the future alike. He has three manifestations. The external one protects the disciples from the external misfortunes and such. The internal one – helps us to fight our human flings such as fear or pride. The arcane manifestation is considered to work with your instincts. 
> 
> Yong Sheng – 永生 – Chinese male name, literally translated as “eternal life”.


End file.
